A backyard zip line is a length of steel cable strung between two anchors, usually a pair of mature trees, with a trolley, a brake, and a seat or harness your child rides across the yard on gravity alone. Picking the best backyard zip lines for kids comes down to two decisions that have nothing … Read more

Climbing domes are absolutely worth it. A climbing dome is a freestanding, hemispherical steel frame that kids scramble over from every direction using molded plastic hand and foot grips, and it delivers the same core physical play as a full swing set in a fraction of the footprint. For a backyard playground, it is one … Read more

Monkey bars are the one piece of backyard playground equipment that never goes out of fashion, and for a simple reason: they build real upper body strength. There is no pedal, no motor and no screen involved. A child hangs, swings and pulls themselves along a span of rungs, and the grip strength and shoulder … Read more

Most driveway hoop guides hand you a list of portable systems and leave you to work out whether you should be pouring concrete instead. That decision comes first, because it rules out half the field. An outdoor basketball hoop for a driveway is one of two things: an in-ground basketball hoop whose pole is set … Read more

A backyard splash pad is a shallow, ground-level water mat that attaches to a garden hose and sprays a low fountain of water so toddlers can sit, crawl and splash without any digging. Most run 4 to 8 feet across and hold only a fraction of an inch of standing water, which is exactly why … Read more

Choosing the best ride on toys for toddlers outdoors is harder than it should be, because almost every listing sells a slightly different idea of fun. One parent is looking for a replacement stroller, the next wants a first taste of a pedal bike, and a third just wants their child moving instead of parked … Read more

A pedal go kart is the simplest, most useful outdoor toy you can hand a child between the ages of about 3 and 10. There is no battery to charge, no motor to burn out, and the child supplies every watt of speed themselves, which means a kart that gets left out in the rain … Read more

The best kids wagons for beach trips do one specific job: they carry a child and a full day of gear from the car to the shoreline in a single pull. Every roundup we have read on this topic lists seatbelts and canopies, but almost none of them tell you what happens when the wheels … Read more

Finding the best outdoor playhouse slides for toddlers is harder than it looks. Product photos flatten every slide into the same gentle angle, so a set that looks calm in a listing can turn into a steep drop the first time a two-year-old climbs it. Parents on parent forums keep asking the same questions: how … Read more

Finding the best dog beds for crates changed the way our team thinks about crate training. After watching our foster dogs refuse to settle on cold metal pans and chewed-up blankets, we spent six weeks rotating a dozen different crate pads through our test crates. A crate bed is a thin, sized-to-fit mattress designed specifically … Read more